#Myth rags on Throne of Glass

[longsightmyth]

Me looking suddenly up at work: it's awfully rich of Queen of Shadows to say snootily of a banker who has behaved perfectly normally with Celaena and been helpful that the portrait on his desk could be his wife or his daughter because 'you never knew with men like him' while Celaena, a barely nineteen year old, is banging a 500+ year old man who the narrative wants me to think is dreamy

[longsightmyth]

He was endgame in queen of glass and by sarah janet's own admission until she started hammering out heir of fire, when she decided Rowan was hotter

I hate that that’s SJM’s MO when she writes otherwise all the time. “They’re incompatible because blah blah blah.” And then there’s like 2-3 books previous that say otherwise.

She did it in TOG by saying Rowan only ever saw all of Aelin and accepted her as she was. When he couldn’t even respect the boundary she set by wanting to be called Celaena, never mind punching her and holding/pinching her tongue to shut her up. And then you have Chaol, who, although I loved them together, wouldn’t have been with her if he knew she was half fae from the get and that canonically is part of his character development in HOF, where he has to learn to let go of the prejudices he was taught growing up. (Also this development is promptly thrown in the trash in the next book, obviously to get rid of him as a love interest because Chaolaena stans were holding on since it was still open to them being a thing.) And then you have Dorian, who didn’t even care that she was an assassin, didn’t care that she was fae when it was revealed to him, was ready to throw away his right to the throne for her.

But I’m supposed to believe Dorian wasn’t the original endgame she set up in the first three books and novellas and bonus book tour story releases because “he never saw her for all she was” when he, in fact, did and was the only who did?? Ok.

Sarah literally dedicates ACOMAF to explaining why every possible thing about the Spring Court is actually evil(TM) hence why Feyre is incompatible with living there but we textually see that the opposite is often (not ALWAYS, but OFTEN) true??? Tamlin's courtiers *do* try to befriend Feyre! She's just so traumatized she (understandably!) doesn't want to engage. Tamlin *does* try to include Feyre in politics, introducing her to court and having her present at the tithe which is pretty much all she can do at this point being illiterate and with her trauma making her to withdraw from even doing these things as well. Feyre not being able to help rebuild villages isn't a big conspiracy theory to keep her cloistered in the manor, but rather is shown to be the people themselves wanting to rebuild their own homes by themselves so they turn down her help??? The writing just bends over backwards to claim things that we objectively see aren't... true. At all. And it's incredibly annoying. Because no, as mentioned above the Inner Circle are not the first people to attempt to befriend her! Her trauma just mysteriously changes to make her want to meet people all the sudden. And no, Rhysand is not the first person to attempt to involve Feyre in politics and whatnot. Again, her trauma stopped her from doing the Spring Court's more mundane politics but somehow made her want to be actively involved in the Night Court's whacky politics where she's getting fingered as a distraction and is stealing from potential allies for some reason. and why does her trauma fully vanish in less than three months. why And the people of the Spring Court aren't evil for respecting their liberator and wanting to rebuild their stuff themselves???? I've yet to figure out why they're vilified for this and contrasted with the citizens of Velaris.

Anywayyyyyy about Throne of Glass specifically: someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Dorian endgame in the originally published Queen of Glass fanfiction, and the original fanfiction was shorter than the final, published series? @longsightmyth

[longsightmyth]

Sarah Janet is not the only YA author who does this and then hides behind 'oh teenagers are having sex/should know about sex' she's just the most popular.

If you're writing erotica you are writing for an audience with an assumed knowledge base. Write all the kink! Write your anatomically improbable/impossible play by play sex scenes! That is the point of erotica! And it is a laudable and important genre! Good erotica writers are AMAZING quite frankly and idk how they do it because good sex scenes are fuckin hard and I'm gonna leave that pun there.

If you're writing for YA (12-18 year olds) you aren't writing for an audience with the same assumed knowledge base. The hymen myth is damaging. The idea that your partner should know how to please you and vice versa without communication or it's not actually meant to be and maybe they're actually a bad partner is damaging. Writing sex that can't actually happen as a play-by-play scene in a book targeted towards 12-18 year olds is frankly bad.

"Myth nobody is using sarah janet books as instruction pamphlets for sex" okay but. I assume people are mostly not using romance novels as a pamphlet for sex either... and yet the hymen myth persists.

[longsightmyth]

Part of the problem with ToG is frankly the shallow worldbuilding, which I wouldn't judge as much except that everyone and their second cousin tries to sell the series as a grand sweeping fantasy. Where are the different cultural norms? Where are the different ENVIRONMENTS and how they influence how people live/interact? Different clothes? Accents? Perceptions?

Why has there been NO social change?!

Why does every government and monarchy operate EXACTLY the same way?!

Why does EVERYONE have the same legends?!

We get a little bit of different environment with the southern continent but that honestly just drives home everything else with the giant question: how did a nation of horse cavalry conquer a nation of giant bird cavalry who live in unclimbable mountains

[longsightmyth]

Myth, this is very vague and I am sorry, and I'm even sorrier for asking you to try and find a particular post on tumblr. But I vaguely remember a scene where Aelin uses her blood oath and the absolute obedience against someone in a weird, sexual way, and you made a post about it. was that real? did that happen?

Complicated!

Rowan swore the magically binding blood oath and therefore must do everything Celaena orders or die! So that's fun!

But you're probably specifically thinking of the weirdly manipulative scene from queen of shadows where she passive aggressives him into sharing a bed and then rocks up in modern lingerie On Purpose, is pretty gross about him asking her to change, and then as if it was his idea to share a bed tells him he can sleep in the tub if he doesn't like her sexy lingerie. Since he has already sworn the blood oath by then, that's even grosser imho.

Technically I don't think she gives him orders in that exact scene. But like. *gestures*

If you remind me later I will dig up the scene itself for you.

[longsightmyth]

It's one of the pettiest of gripes but the way we're supposed to pronounce 'wyrd' as in 'wyrdmarks' in tog drives me to a frothing fury

[longsightmyth]

Someone remind me in like five hours to make a compilation of all the times celaena is like I'm gonna murder these innocents/allies en masse if I don't get my way

[longsightmyth]

[longsightmyth]

sorry to bother you but i didn't know who else to ask but was it ever explained in tog how aedion (who's father is fully fae) somehow isn't considered fae at all, aka he isn't immortal and can't shapeshift, while aelin (who's parents are both human) is somehow half fae? is it because that one goddess was her ancestor?

Celaena is actually part fae on both sides: on the Galathynius end she gets it from Brannon, and presumably whenever Elena's descendant marries back into the Galathynius line (the only way for Elena to be a mutual ancestor of Celaena and Dorian) so the amount of fae blood there is minuscule but extant. Through her mother and the Ashryvers she is directly and more recently descended from Mab, who is per the text Celaena's great-grandmother (there is one line in Kingdom of Ash where Mab is suddenly a more distant grandmother, but since that makes everything make even less sense I ignore it. If you want the quotes lmk), which makes Celaena just a smidge more than 1/8 fae, plus, as you mentioned, whatever lingering godblood is in there from Mala via Elena and whichever of Elena's siblings ruled Terrasen.

On the other hand Aedion has exactly the same amount of fae blood from Mab, since his unnamed mother was Evalin's cousin and for him to have Mab's eyes he must be descended from her, making him also Mab's great-grandson. On top of what he inherited from Mab, as you said, his father was fully fae. This means that Aedion is, assuming there was no other fae intermarriage in the Ashryver's past (and it seems like we would know about it given how hot under the collar these books are re: fae), more than half fae, or, specifically, 5/8 fae.

So yeah.

(Like I said, there is room for more or less fae blood in here, but the only two different interpretations in the text mean less fae blood for Celaena and/or more for Aedion, which... *shrugs helplessly*)

[longsightmyth]

It's like. Of course Aneryn thinks Renwick can be a decent dude despite Everything (TM) because she has known him since she was 5 (AND SHE LITERALLY GOT HANDED TO HIM LIKE A GIFT?!)(the northern court is fucked up)(her mom saw that her daughter's best chance was being handed to This Fae In Particular)(GUESS SHE WAS RIGHT)

Anyway he basically raised Aneryn and she has SEEN him help other people when he could and help/shield her in specific for twelve years. Aneryn is The Right Choice to give us a view that Renwick can be believed, where Random Blue Witch Number 37 Just Knowing Renwick can be a good dude would make no sense. It's a good writing choice both because it makes sense and isn't downplaying the very real horror Renwick's existence could be to literally any other blue witch [who hasn't seen him trying to do better in visions]

Though actually because he almost always has Aneryn with him and blue witches can't see each other, that means they... haven't been able to see him much.

...which also sort of means Aneryn is probably going to be around him for a very long time

...which makes sense for this genuine but deeply complicated relationship these two seem to have

Anyway my point is this: both in giving a living example of someone Renwick has had (her) lifelong power over and showing that he only used it to help, the book allows us the readers to know that he is actually very serious about it. By having Aneryn be the one to acknowledge HIS pain, we the readers can acknowledge his (horrific) backstory without having someone he has hurt have to be A Super Forgiving Mouthpiece Of Peace With The Oppressors. (though as Aneryn points out, EVERYONE in a community is hurt when you start targeting them even if some don't suffer physically)(so maybe I should say, without someone he has hurt purposefully, no matter how unwilling he may have been later)(or even in the beginning! HIS FATHER SENT HIM TO TORTURE CAMP FOR SUMMER BREAKS)

Aneryn gives us a perspective that allows us to accept that Renwick isn't an unmitigated monster. The other blue witches give us a perspective that makes us acknowledge you don't have to be an unmitigated monster to hurt people terribly.

It makes sense for Aneryn to be the softer viewpoint in a way that books that try to include this nuance often miss: she CAN be the softer viewpoint, because she has a different experience.

I'm not sure I'm making sense, it's 2:22am

But if this was a sarah janet novel we'd have good blue witches who worshipped the ground Renwick walked on because he apparently suddenly decided to stop torturing people and we'd have bad blue witches who didn't believe he was good now, the meanies.

Well okay actually in a sarah janet novel Renwick's childhood torture camp would be justified in some way and his dad and uncle retroactively trying to save the world while secretly Baba Aaru was the true evil all along because she was chill with them dying to free her people.

Don't look at me like that. That's basically the side plot of crescent city.

[longsightmyth]

But I think it's important to acknowledge an important factor in this : sjm is a bad author.

Precisely.

What Should Nesta Have Done? (Cabin Years Ramble)

okay this came about as a response to THIS post (I'm linking because I don't want to invalidate the take, this is just my opinion which is informed by my own bias) @mariekecath I hope you don't mind, I just like to ramble

In response to OP's excerpts, I said

Literally in the last two excerpts 1) Nesta is making sure Feyre doesn't get robbed, which she explains and 2) goes out to chop wood AGAIN, without being asked to

You know who did nothing and was asked nothing by Feyre? Elain. Feyre also only ever favoured Elain in that way and then never really held her accountable or even pressed the issue of Rhys forgiving Elain but not Nesta because "NeStA iS iLLyRiAn"

Feyre and Nesta are two sides of the same coin, something Feyre acknowledges in the first few chapters. Feyre does good but her thoughts can be brutal and selfish - she wishes her family would die, she says it's okay her mother died because they have one less mouth to feed, she thinks Andras might be a Fae and kills him thinking good riddance.

And that's fine that's just who she is in these harsh circumstances, that's how she deals with everything

Nesta just says all of it out loud. The acotar slut shaming comment was in defense of her relationship with Tomas, who she loved at that point. She goes to chop wood twice, even if she complains about doing it. She stands up to the CoTB because of what the Fae did to the humans. Nesta doesn't trust the mercenaries but resists and HL's glamour + takes a two day journey to the wall to try bring Feyre back. She also tries to make up when Feyre returns.

[I hope this doesn't come off as mean or harsh, I'm just trying to fit as much as I can in this limited word count.]

Feyre dislikes her whole family except maybe Elain but even then it's not like she's overly fond of her. That's just how they were. But they were family and they loved each other.

Until sjm overplayed the cruel step sisters trope to try make Feyre's trauma backstory comparable to the Fae when she abandoned that Feyre's humanity was what made her special.

@wolfnesta had a great response to the initial post: HERE

I see a lot of "I acknowledge what Nesta did" vs "Nesta bears no responsibility" stuff these days and I get how Nesta fans can find themselves on either side.

But I think it's important to acknowledge an important factor in this : sjm is a bad author.

This might be an uncomfortable statement for some of you because after all; SJM wrote Nesta, many fans are readers of all three of her series and she obviously has all of us so wrapped up in these worlds, right?

Well, no. She is a bad author. She is inconsistent, lazy with her world building and character development, been called out for plagiarism, racism, sexism, portraying toxic behaviour as good and romanticizing abusive tendencies.

Personally, I wouldn't care about these bad elements if all the books were adult fantasies - and yes i know she was forced to publish under YA initially, but she should have taken that into account and changed the material to reflect that. That's her responsibility as an adult writing for teens.

ANYWAYS ALL THAT TO FINALLY GET TO THE POINT OF THIS POST (SORRY)

If SJM had been a better author, her initial book (or at least her retconning) would have included acknowledging Elain and Nesta as fully fleshed out characters and reflecting that they did take part in life in the Cabin from cooking to cleaning.

If there can be a second daemati and whole scenes revisited and blatantly contradicted for Rhysand's sake - then Nesta could have had a small gig as a governess at the Beddor house, Elain could have been Papa A's primary caretaker and planted herbs and veg alongside her flowers.

But SJM is a bad author. She could have humanised the characters who are supposed to be special specifically for their humanity by : let Feyre acknowledge her own sometimes selfish pov, give Nesta the credit she deserves for doing her part even if she complained about doing it, let Elain be an active person outside of (BOTH) her sisters coddling her.

Instead, Feyre must be fully fae-ized, complete with doubling down on the no nuance trauma porn backstory where she starts hunting at 14 years old? no I mean 11 years old? Well actually she was only 8 when her dying mother passed sole responsibilty of the family and Feyre immediately became the only human in a room full of NPCs.

[AGAIN JUST A REMINDER its Feyre who doesn't even ask Elain to do anything but expects it of Nesta and their disabled father. Feyre also only protects and coddles Elain. Feyre and Nesta are two sides of the same coin]

So in answer to the title; Nothing.

You either accept what Sarah Says and acknowledge Nesta and Elain were the evil step sister archetypes and credit them for their development - that alone makes Feyre the asshole for not painting Nesta but painting Elain.

OR you break the Sarah Says rule and think of them as 3D characters and acknowledge Feyre's bias towards her own struggle neglects to take into account her sister's contributions (- which again makes Feyre the asshole for not painting Nesta but painting Elain)

[longsightmyth]

I'm curious: do you think, if R/hysand either did not exist as a character or if he was drastically changed to not have acted so abusively in ACO/TAR, that we the audience would have noticed T/amlin's red flags easier without the clear contrast of R/hysand to make him appear better?

I mean I noticed Tamlin's red flags immediately in acotar so I am perhaps not the person to ask

I think Sarah Janet's writing depends heavily on her audience not having read widely prior to reading her novels and then growing up with them. I am in fact not convinced moving them to YA wasn't a marketing tactic of her publishers even beyond the implosion of NA: younger and/or sheltered readers won't have as many books or as much life experience under their belts in order to pick these things out. As with Twilight, not seeing these things relies heavily on not understanding they are problems in the first place, OR on not realizing that the telling and the showing don't line up.

(There is another category, in which people who read, for instance, dark fantasy romance, are fully aware of the tropes and engage with them on that level, but those are not the people who *suddenly* noticed Tamlin's red flags, those are the people who are fully aware that the flags are there and part and parcel of genre convention, as I believe @bookishfeylin has discussed elsewhere, re: do we apply real world standards of behavior or work within a stated fantasy framework)

So in a roundabout way, I guess I'm saying no. I don't think without Rhysand people would have noticed Tamlin's problems easier, partly because, as many of us discussing the book have mentioned, Rhysand and Tamlin have the same red flags up until acosf, and the people who didn't see Tamlin's the first time around also don't see Rhysand's.

Also because so many of the same fans don't see the grossness in ALL the relationships in Throne of Glass.

[longsightmyth]

Not so pleasant reminder of how gross Lorcan and Elide's whole thing is from the get-go

[longsightmyth]

Not to make it All About Me but the hilarity of the anons who kept popping into my inbox to be like 'if you hate throne of glass so much let's see you do better' and my mutuals were all like

Broskis.

will never understand why so many stans throw around the argument “have you written a book? then you shouldn’t be trashing* on this author!” as if publishing a book means you’re a good writer and above critique. the sheer number of published authors who are crap writers should speak for itself. also, many trade reviewers, editors, and agents are not published authors themselves, so what’s stans’ argument there?

*they consider critique trashing an author

[longsightmyth]

Apparently people think this is an acotar ripoff and I have to say that a, it's closer in Some Certain Things (I'm 86% sure Remy is a lost princess) to ToG, and b, this is because people think anything with fae and courts is based off sarah janet don't they

Anyway 1/3 of the way through it's much more its own thing than tog or acotar are, the latter two being baldly ripped from the black jewels in multiple places

[longsightmyth]

Every once and a while I remember that Aedion is at least 5/8 fae and Celaena is the teeniest fraction of a fraction more than 1/4 fae and have to wonder how that whole magic thing really worked out here